12 November 2025
RMT Press Office:
Rail union RMT, has condemned Avanti West Coast for running stations with low staffing levels, warning that cuts and unfilled vacancies are putting both passengers and staff potentially at risk.
At Stoke-on-Trent, the union has received reports that gate lines are frequently staffed by just one person, despite risk assessments requiring two.
Ticket office staff are also being pulled away to cover gates, leaving long queues of passengers needing help.
Management has now indicated it will not fill a vacant ticket office post which RMT says amounts to cuts by the back door.
At Preston, the union has been told that the ticket office is being forced to close early because of staff shortages, while the Customer Information Centre was left unstaffed as workers were diverted to assist passengers with disabilities.
Recently there were 85 requests for Disabled Passenger Assistance, but no additional staff have been provided.
The union estimates that Preston is currently at least 11 staff short, creating unsafe pressure extra workloads.
RMT is demanding that Avanti West Coast:
- Maintain ticket office staffing at all stations with no reductions from previous arrangements.
- Ensure at least two members of staff are present on every gate line whenever gates are in operation.
- Provide sufficient additional staffing to deal with the sharp rise in disabled passenger assistance requests.
RMT General Secretary Eddie Dempsey said: “Avanti is trying to run major stations on the cheap and it is putting passengers and staff at potential risk.
"Our members are being asked to cover multiple safety-critical roles at once, ticket offices are not being staffed properly, and disabled passengers are being left waiting for support which is wholly unacceptable.
"The travelling public have made it clear time and again, that they want open, fully staffed stations, not cuts by stealth.
"Avanti must recruit staff to acceptable levels and put safety, accessibility and passenger service first.”
END
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Tagged with: RMT, Eddie Dempsey, Avanti West Coast, Staffing, Ticket Offices
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